Clarissa Harlowe; or the history of a young lady — Volume 5 eBook

Faith, Jack, I think I am sick already. Is it
possible for such a giddy fellow as me to persuade
myself to be ill! I am a better mimic at this
rate than I wish to be. But every nerve and fibre
of me is always ready to contribute its aid, whether
by health or by ailment, to carry a resolved-on roguery
into execution.

Dorcas has transcribed for me the whole letter of
Miss Howe, dated Sunday, May 14,* of which before
I had only extracts. She found no other letter
added to that parcel: but this, and that which
I copied myself in character last Sunday whilst she
was at church, relating to the smuggling scheme,**
are enough for me.

* See Vol. IV. Letter XXIX. ** Ibid.
Letter XLII.

***

Dorcas tells me, that her lady has been removing her
papers from the mahogany chest into a wainscot box,
which held her linen, and which she put into her dark
closet. We have no key of that at present.
No doubt but all her letters, previous to those I
have come at, are in that box. Dorcas is uneasy
upon it: yet hopes that her lady does not suspect
her; for she is sure that she laid in every thing
as she found it.

LETTER II

Mr. Lovelace, toJohnBelford,
Esq. Cocoa-tree, Saturday, may 27.

This ipecacuanha is a most disagreeable medicine.
That these cursed physical folks can find out nothing
to do us good, but what would poison the devil!
In the other world, were they only to take physic,
it would be punishable enough of itself for a mis-spent
life. A doctor at one elbow, and an apothecary
at the other, and the poor soul labouring under their
prescribed operations, he need no worse tormentors.

But now this was to take down my countenance.
It has done it: for, with violent reachings,
having taken enough to make me sick, and not enough
water to carry it off, I presently looked as if I had
kept my bed a fortnight. Ill jesting, as I thought
in the midst of the exercise, with edge tools, and
worse with physical ones.

Two hours it held me. I had forbid Dorcas to
let her lady know any thing of the matter; out of
tenderness to her; being willing, when she knew my
prohibition, to let her see that I expected her to
be concerned for me.—­

Well, but Dorcas was nevertheless a woman, and she
can whisper to her lady the secret she is enjoined
to keep!

Come hither, toad, [sick as the devil at the instant];
let me see what a mixture of grief and surprize may
be beat up together in thy puden-face.

That won’t do. That dropt jaw, and mouth
distended into the long oval, is more upon the horrible
than the grievous.

Nor that pinking and winking with thy odious eyes,
as my charmer once called them.

A little better that; yet not quite right: but
keep your mouth closer. You have a muscle or
two which you have no command of, between your cheek-bone
and your lips, that should carry one corner of your
mouth up towards your crow’s-foot, and that
down to meet it.